


Christmas

by Little_Dragon_Writes



Category: Red Queen - Victoria Aveyard
Genre: Secret Santa 2016
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-21
Updated: 2017-08-21
Packaged: 2018-12-18 00:12:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,147
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11862591
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Little_Dragon_Writes/pseuds/Little_Dragon_Writes
Summary: I've written this little one shot for the 2016 red queen secret Santa, the story is mainly focused on Luther and it takes place at Tuck where something special is about to happen. MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!!





	Christmas

**Author's Note:**

> I've written this for the 2016 red queen secret Santa on tumblr for @dewydrael, hopefully you'll like it! Just wanted to add that Maggie is from @LilyHarvord fanfiction (which is amazing! So, go read them)! I just love her little Maggie so much that I couldn't find anyone else to be Luther's best friend (hope she won't mind ^^) Merry Christmas everyone!

The feet of the stool wobbled as he stretched his arm further. _Just a little bit more_ , he thought, _just a little bit._ His fingers had just grazed the thin, soft leather before the ground shrank before his eyes and he tumbled to the floor with a hard thud. "Oww," he groaned.

"Luther! Luther, are you alright?" His friend rushed to his side, brown hair falling from her messy French braid.

"Yeah Maggie, I'm okay! Never been better! Ha-ha! Not even a scratch!"

"You sure?"

"Yeah Maggie, I am. You worry too much. Be careful or otherwise you'll get as wrinkled as Nanny if you keep worrying all the time!"

"I wouldn't be worried all the time if you wouldn't put yourself into those situations all the time, Luther," she said pouting her cheeks.

He smiled. Maggie was right. He always managed to get into trouble. And she was always there, at his side, to make sure he was okay.

She was his friend and he was hers.

They had met back a few months ago, some days after he first arrived at Tuck. He was lost and afraid and shy and Newblood. Red but not. Silver but not. Something the other Reds were afraid of. Not a good start for integration. Worse, his ability was to suck the life from things. Not helping.

And her, well he guessed being blind and sharing the same ability as The Whispering Queen wasn't that good for integration either.

People were stupid. She was the kindest person he had ever met, and if she used her ability on him, it was only because it was the only way for her to see the world and understand things that her senses couldn't. Her ability was probably the reason why she wasn't afraid of him like the others were. She had seen, understood, that the person the most afraid of his ability was himself.

"Luce, as much as I love to hear you think that I'm the best person in all Norta and beyond, I'd very much like to know for what you've earned bruises this time."

"Oh. Yeah. Right," he said to the mess of books, ignoring her comment. They laid splattered around them. Bookmarks and loose pages splayed across the floor in a colossal mess of words he'd never be able to understand.

"Well?" She insisted. Maggie seemed to be, as much, if not more, excited as he was about the books.

_Oh crap_. Julian was not going to be happy about this. Not at all.

"Julian is _so_ going to kill you."

"I know, right?" Luther grimaced. But any thought of an unhappy Julian, annoyed that someone had damaged his precious books, melted away when he saw the object of his curiosity, open, a few feet away.

It was smaller than the others. Where Julian's other books were in perfect conditions, this one was not. Its dog-eared pages and the faded colors on the front cover showed that the little book had been through a lot. Luther didn't know how to read but he started to turn the pages anyway, he loved the feelings of pages under his fingertips, the specific smell that it gave, everything. And to both his and Maggie's delight, he discovered that they were illustrations at some points. Forests, fields, houses, covered in snow. People tiptoeing to reach the end of a huge tree, candles and hundreds of colored dots intertwined within the leaves. Children singing and exchanging some pretty colored boxes, stars glittering in their eyes. They all seemed so happy...

"What do you think they're doing?" Maggie finally asked.

"I don't know," he admitted, scratching his head. "Maybe they're doing some weird ritual to call upon the sun or, maybe they're doing some dark mass and killing some kittens, I'm sure I can see red dots here."

"Luther!"

"Just kidding Mags, just kidding," he smiled, "come on, let's find Julian!"

"But Luce, Julian is-" She didn't have the time to finish her sentence. He was already dragging her into the corridors, the golden yellow leather jacket book in his other hand, wearing his stupid happy grin on his face that grew bigger as they slalomed between people, from soldiers to grandmas, earning reproachful glares as they went by.

Three pairs of eyes turned to them, as they both burst, panting, into the room. Julian was the first to react and arrived next to them, asking them the reason of their sudden appearance in the middle of a very important adult meeting.

And so, Maggie told the story, trying her best to make Luther appear as innocent as possible.

"Luther," Julian sighs, "how many times do I need to tell you that I don't want you to go in there by yourself? It's not that I don't want you to see my books or anything, quite the opposite. I'm pleased that you love books as much as I do, but, please wait for me next time okay? You almost got badly injured today. Plus, you always come running for me afterwards, with more questions and bruises that the last time I'd seen you, we would gain time if you could just learn to be patient."

"I know, Julian," he pleaded. "I'm sorry, but, we found this book and we were wondering what the people were doing on the pages, oh and these pages too! You know the answers, right? Right?"

Julian's face seemed to drop a little as he saw the book in question in the little boy's hands. But as the good Silver he was, he had long learned how to hide his emotions and so a smile was back on his face, in the blink of an eye. "I know this book all too well my children, but story time must wait. I'm occupied now but as soon as I'm finished I'll tell you all about it okay?"

Julian's heart tightened as he saw the two younger faces drop with disappointment.

Farley cleared her throat. "Go on, Julian. Satisfy the children's curiosity. We've been at this for hours now," she pointed out at the maps, sprawled across the tables, the cold mugs and open pens. "We could all use the break."

Cal nodded in agreement.

Julian took the book with precaution. Feeling the material under his fingertips, he followed the lines of the golden embroidered patterns as if he knew them by heart. Emotions flickered across the man's face as memories flashed behind his eyes. Each bringing back tough souvenirs from his past. Luther didn't need Maggie's ability to understand that nostalgia and sadness was to be seen among them.

Silence lingered.

"This book belonged to the Queen of Norta. Not Elara, my children, no. To the rightful queen of Norta. Coriane, my beloved sister. Cal's mother..." Julian breathed, gathering his thoughts. "I gave it to her on her fifteenth birthday. My sister didn't read as much as I do, no, but she loved to learn new things. Anything about mechanics or the stories from the past. This book has belonged to my sister but before that, it had belonged to many others. You see, my children, this book is way older than you think. It's from the Past. The era before Norta. Before the blood separation. Before everything. This book comes from an era when five huge continents still existed on earth. A lot of people lived on those lands, and this book is an anthology of stories and poems telling what many of this people used to do at the end of year. This book is about Christmas, a feast that spread the values of love and family. My sister loved this book with all her heart and she used to read it again and again, even though she knew the endings already." He paused, catching his breath.

Talking about his deceased sister must still be hard for him, even after the many years that has gone by, Luther thought. He didn't have any family apart from his grandpa and he was already so sad to leave him behind to come to the Scarlet Guard... To imagine losing him for good... No, he preferred not to think about this, after all.

"Here, Luther," Julian pointed a bony finger to the drawing Luther had been examining. "In this drawing, people are decorating a Christmas tree with candles and garlands and everything they find pretty. I'm to assume children used to compete between themselves to know which one of them had the prettiest." He chuckled. "And here people are exchanging presents with the people they love. And here, under the falling snow, by villagers' doors, children are singing Christmas songs."

"[ 'Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse; the stockings were hung by the chimney with care, in hopes that St Nicholas soon would be there ](http://www.night.net/christmas/Twas-night01.html)," Cal whispered, his lips quirking to the side.

Julian's head snapped in the direction of his nephew. Astonishment drawn on his face. His eyes softened. "Of course, you'd remembered. You and your perfect memory... You were so young but she used to read it every night to you, before you fall asleep. And if it wasn't enough for you to fell asleep, she would sing you Christmas lullabies. She would sing with all her heart and all the love she had for her precious baby. She had such a beautiful voice..."

Another silence lingered. Sorrow, sadness and grief hit Maggie, she could feel it as if the feelings were hers, squeezing and tearing her heart apart.

"What's snow?" she asked, hoping that it would ease the sadness in the atmosphere.

"Oh Mags, you'd love it", Luther shouted. "l saw it once when I was living with Gramps! Winter was really cold this time of year and when we woke up, snow was falling from the clouds. Everything was covered with white powder, from the rooftops to the fields. Everything. Oh, and Mags, when you walk on snow it cracks under your feet and-"

She giggled with delight as she witnessed the different sceneries in her friend's mind. "I want to have snow too! It seems to be so much fun and so pretty!"

"Say Farley, can we organize Christmas too," asked Luther out of nowhere.

Farley blinked in surprised. And blinked again. "I don't-"

"Please Farley, please?"

"Pretty please?" Maggie added.

Farley sighed. Since her daughter, Clara was born she seemed to have even more problems resisting the children's pleading. Now didn't seem to be the time for change. "Why not."

The cheers from the children erupted as she agreed, filling her soul with wonderful feeling. And she smiled, actually smiled, as she heard them scurrying back to their basement, spreading the wonderful news to everyone they crossed. Even though she was pretty sure that everyone would be clueless as to what they were talking about.

"Ah children..." Julian turned to her, all sadness had disappeared from his face. "What did you just get yourself into Diana?"

"I don't know," she chuckled.

And so, Christmas became once more.

And as Luther went to bed that night, the nightmares that once plagued his slumber, were replaced by new happy memories. Everyone had been so eager about the idea that everyone participated to resurrect the celebration, both young and old. Everyone had had a task to accomplish, retrieving the tree, creating decorations, baking cookies, cleaning the hall, knitting Christmas jumpers... and everyone took it seriously.

Luther's mind was full of wonderful memories as he viewed again in his mind the time when Clara, helped with her mother, put the last and final star at the top of the tree, the time when Cal lit all the candles at once with his ability, receiving cheers from everyone, the joy he had felt as he saw the snow falling from the sky, the time when, under Harrick's and Farrah's protection, they had been all able to go outside and do a huge snow ball battle, snowmen and angels in the snow.

Happy thoughts indeed.

He sneezed.

Maggie moved in the bed next to his, and whispered in her sleep, "You did catch a cold!" _Worth it_ , Luther thought. And his returning grin was enough to get a pillow to the face.

* * *

 

My works : 

**Voltron Legendary Defender, Netflix**

  * [A cute alien with freckles](http://archiveofourown.org/works/11390094/chapters/25506528) \- complete - silly story involving late night thought and space boyfriends #klance 
  * [Duct tape can fix anything, mi nino](http://archiveofourown.org/works/11485902) \- one shot involving a clumsy Lance and a pissed off gremlin
  * [Underwater ](http://archiveofourown.org/works/10829766/chapters/24034509)\- a swim team voltron AU #klance 
  * [Scarlet Kaida ](http://archiveofourown.org/works/11877816/chapters/26821338)\- voltron allies with pirates in order to save the universe
  * more projects to come :)



**Red Queen, Victoria Aveyard**

  * [Christmas](http://archiveofourown.org/works/11862591)
  * [Bleeding stones ](http://archiveofourown.org/works/11862450)



**A court of thorn and roses, Sarah J. Maas**

  * [Fresh Paint ](http://archiveofourown.org/works/10843644)\- post ACOMAF, Cassian's pov



 

My playlists :

  * [Writing Tale of the Scarlet Kaida ](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLulQroJE9eLrL1Di1M-3YMK9QMM8ZG4HG&jct=794nC4sDI4SVFNzVoVbX4Lt3lJ23sg)
  * [Writing angst and sad scenes ](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLulQroJE9eLryuzJ_UqDrtnjGl7KcMM7E)



**Author's Note:**

> Bonus: things that i couldn't put in the story: 1. It takes place between 2 and 4 years in the future so Mare is here, safe and sound 2. Gisa knitted the Christmas jumpers (Sara healed her hands long ago) 3. Cal is loved by the Barrow family, like a son 4. Julian calls Farley by her name and she does the same as they become close friends in the years that has went by 6. When Mare wasn't kissing or hugging Cal she was playing with her niece, who she loves with all her heart (she was the reason she didn't fall into depression after she's been rescued) 7. Neither Cal nor Kilorn can handle alcohol and they danced together at some point of the night 8. They'll do Christmas next year too because they enjoyed it a lot.


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